Trickles of Red
by lilyevanspottersnape
Summary: James walks in on Lily doing something he would never have suspected and has to help her  WARNING contains mild language and self harm


Lily P.O.V.

Lily Evans sat cross-legged on the four-poster bed in the heads dorm. She was half-way through her seventh and final year at Hogwarts. Head girl, great friends the guy of her dreams wanted her but even with these she still wasn't happy.

She slowly dragged the razor across her pale wrist not even wincing at the stinging sensation. She had gotten used to it in the past few months. She didn't know what had caused her to start doing it, it just happened once and it was extremely addictive. She watched as small dots of blood appeared the scratch she had made. The deep red blood, almost too dark in comparison to her ivory skin tone, merged into a line before starting to dribble down her arm and onto her palm. She watched in fascination, she loved watching the blood running down her arm there was just something about it. She had always been a quick bleeder, which made it look worse than it was, but this made it better in her mind. She could do less permanent damage to herself while still getting the desired effect.

She didn't do this for the pain it caused, or even the scars. She hated the scars on her arms but there was nothing she could do about it, she couldn't go to the hospital wing for fear of her dark secret being found out, no-one had ever found out that she did this, she was always careful to hide her arms, even in summer. There were spells to heal wounds that would leave no scars, but she already had scars that could never go away and the new ones she was forming now had to be healed quickly. She knew there would be a book in the library for her, but it would be in the restricted section. She couldn't get the book without raising the suspicion of a teacher.

Her robe which she had pushed up her arm slid down over the bloody cut. She quickly grabbed it and folded over the bottom of the sleeve at the hem. She didn't want to see her scars so only showing the area she was cutting worked best. The blood now slowly trickling down her arm dripped and hit the bed sheets, luckily it hit the blood-red coloured part of the sheet and not the gold. She could only imagine the questions she would get from James if he saw bloody stains, and he'd be horrified at the reason. She thought of the boy she was in love with, most people would kill for her situation; the gorgeous guy she liked had liked her for years so it would be only too easy to get together. But she couldn't, if they were together there would be no way to get away with always wearing long sleeves, and knowing James, she'd likely be taking her clothes off. It was hard enough avoiding suspicion from her friends, never mind a boyfriend.

As she watched the deep red blood with a fascination that she couldn't find even in her favourite subject, Potions, she heard the heavy thumping of footsteps belonging to none other than James Potter she sighed; he would be getting his invisibility cloak for yet another exciting marauder trip with Remus, Sirius and Peter. The footsteps got louder and the door handle to her room clunked as James opened the door. Her emerald green eyes widened as she quickly fumbled with the sleeves of her robes.

"Evans, Minnie wants us to..." started James, but she never heard exactly what it was Professor McGonagall wanted them to do because James' eyes widened at her trying to pull the sleeve down over her wrist. The blood soaked the robes as he walked towards her, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. Suddenly she realised she still had the blade in her hand and she flicked her other wrist, flinging it across the room. James glanced over at it just before it pinged into the wall and his eyes got even wider still, if that was even possible.

James P.O.V.

Muttering the password to the portrait to the heads area he and Lily shared, James hurried up the stairs, hoping to find her so that they could do an emergency patrol that night, seeing as one of the prefects was ill. He hoped she would be there, although he was almost sure she would be, studying, as usual.

Crossing the mini-common room, he opened the door to her room and it took him a second to process what he saw, the girl of his dreams was sitting cross-legged on her bed, the robe of her left sleeve folded to just above her wrist where there was a dark red line with dribbles of blood running down her hand and slowly dripping onto the bed covers. In her other hand he saw the glinting of something silver, like a blade.

It couldn't be? She's so perfect, why would she do that to herself? he thought in disbelief. As this was buzzing through his head, Lily was frantically trying to pull down her sleeve, her lovely emerald eyes opened wide. Suddenly, as though she had just realised she was holding it, the silver object went flinging across the room before hitting the wall. Although he was a chaser not a seeker, James had a sharp eye due to his constant mucking about with the snitch he had nicked in second year and he could easily tell it was a small razor blade, with a faint glimmer of her dark red blood along the edge.

While all this was running through his head, he had started talking. "Evans, Minnie wants us to..." but at that, he stopped in horror. Walking towards her he had to draw in a faint breath to utter "Lily, what have you been doing?" At this point, he had crossed the room to her bed and he reached out for her damp, bloody sleeve. She didn't even make to move, she seemed to be in shock, he thought worriedly. Slowly he dragged her sleeve slightly up to reveal the first and most recent cut. Holy Shit! he thought as he watched the deep red blood drip down from the cut to her hand. He yanked the sleeve up as far as it would go to reveal loads of faint, thin pink or white scars all over her arm.

Suddenly his brain kicked in. "Evans! Bloody hell! Why! Just why?" With a wave of his wand he vanished the blood with another slowed down the bleeding. That should buy him a few more minutes. Staring into her deep green eyes he gave her a questioning look that demanded answers.

"Please don't tell" She begged "I can't even go to the hospital wing, no-one can know, please..."

She sounded so desperate he believed her.

He didn't trust her not to flee or make it worse in the few minutes it would take him to find a book to help. "Sorry I have to do this Evans but... _Petrificus Totalus_"

He ran out the room, summoning his cloak as he went and sprinted to the library, straight into the restricted section, with a quick search before finding what he was looking for and turned and ran back to the girl he loved. Returning to the room he quickly released the spell before searching the book for the page with healing spells. Lily sat silently with tears falling down her cheeks as he ran his wand over the cuts murmuring incantations and watching as the wounds slowly closed.

Lily P.O.V.

She could hardly believe he didn't trust her not to move so badly that he had to cast a spell on her while he ran to the library but she didn't REALLY care. He would never like her now, now he knew how messed up she really was. As she watched him heal her cuts she felt mixed emotions, part of her was glad the cuts were gone, part of her was embarrassed that he knew and part (probably the part that drove her to do this in the first place) was disappointed she would never see the marks of this specific cut. The salty tear that rolled down her cheek was because her love knew she was mucked up and would never want to go near her and probably laugh at her for being so pathetic before telling everyone.

James P.O.V.

He watched Lily as the tear rolled down her cheek, wondering why she was crying. He wanted to pull the girl into a hug, she seemed so vulnerable he wanted to hold her and tell her it would be ok but he refrained, unsure of her reaction. He opened his mouth to yell at her for being so stupid before realising this would upset her and he simply closed his mouth again. Eventually he quietly asked her "Why? I just don't understand."

She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged her scarred arms around them and looked up at him, her deep emerald eyes seemed to be inviting him to sit down. He perched on the end of the bed and listened carefully as Lily explained how she didn't know why she had started doing it all those months ago and how it was just addicting so she continued doing it, only to see the blood trickle down her arms. Her pale ivory arms, the looked so out of place covered in deep red blood. It didn't look right to him. As she spoke he found himself getting closer and closer to her and by the end of her explanation her head was leaning on his chest and he had his arms wrapped around her. She was still crying. He didn't understand why girls cried so much.

"Why are you crying?" he asked gently

"You're going to think I'm weird and messed up. No-one has ever found out about this before."

"Shhh" he soothed whispering into her glittering auburn hair "I'd never think that. I'll always be here for you whenever you need me but you need to try and stop this, it's a very dangerous habit."

"I love you James" she whispered leaning into his warm, muscled chest.

"I love you too" he said into her hair and he kissed the top of her head.

Lily lifted her head away from his chest at this and looked into his deep hazel eyes. James looked right back into her stunning emerald ones. He leaned his head forward into her face and their lips met. He tasted salt on her lips as they kissed but he didn't care because he was with her.


End file.
